Eternal Security

Yes there are several Baptist groups that believe you can lose and/or forfeit your eternal salvation. I believe the American Baptist, or at least some of them hold this view as well as Free-Will Baptist. Not sure of any other groups.

It's not a Scriptural position, but why let what Scripture says get the way :laugh:.

 

I believe in the doctrine of the "SECURITY OF THE BELIEVER".
I believe that we can NOT LOSE our salvation....Eph. 2:8-9, Titus 3:5, Rom 8, John 10 and etc., however it can be given up by those (everyone not chosen by GOD in election) who will refuse GOD's GRACE, But we have to ask ourselves for the person to give up thier salvation: where they really saved to begin with? Because these people were NOT ever saved. 1st John 2:19

"The LOST of SALVATION" is a FALSE doctrinal heresy.
I have heard some "Free Will" baptist believe that they can lose it, and I have even talked to a SBC preacher that believed that he could lose it, but the SBC denomination does not believe that a believer can lose thier salvation....

May GOD bless you....

 

Dr McGee once said that he preached the
security of the beliver and that he also
preached the insecurity of the unbeliever.


Food for thought.

 

The General Baptists also believe in conditional security (=one can lose salvation).

To my knowledge, the SBC has no doctrinal standard on the question. I have known Southern Baptists who didn't believe in unconditional security (=one cannot lose salvation), but I'll admit that they are a tiny minority. I've never known such a belief to be held among independent fundamental Baptists.

I don't mind people believing that you can live in sin and go to heaven; it's when they start trying to practice it that gets my dander up.

 

Here is the "official" SBC position on Eternal Security, from Article V of the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message, which I do not believe has been changed from the 1963 version:

"V. God's Purpose of Grace
Election is the gracious purpose of God, according to which He regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners. It is consistent with the free agency of man, and comprehends all the means in connection with the end. It is the glorious display of God's sovereign goodness, and is infinitely wise, holy, and unchangeable. It excludes boasting and promotes humility.

All true believers endure to the end. Those whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by His Spirit, will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end. Believers may fall into sin through neglect and temptation, whereby they grieve the Spirit, impair their graces and comforts, and bring reproach on the cause of Christ and temporal judgments on themselves; yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." ​

 

Pretty much, just highlight the whole later part with underline emphasis and large lettering. :thumbs:

Sounds like a pretty solid statement of Eternal Security. I should know (at least hopefully I should know) I'm an SBC Pastor.

 

Yeah, it's been a long time since I was SBC, and I'd even forgotten about the New Hampshire Confession, which never got mentioned unless disputing about inerrancy. I guess I was brainwashed by that element that keeps insisting that Baptists have no creeds.

There are a lot of people in the SBC pews who don't buy into unconditional security, despite the fact that it's been hammered into them them from Day One. But then, there are a lot of dissenters along every line. Take, f'rinstance, Calvinism.

 

You will probably know that with baptist churches, it is extremely difficult to generalise. There is no "hierarchy" of organisation among baptist churches, so there is no national or international body that speaks on behalf of them all (in spite of media references to "the baptist church in the UK", and the like). Each local baptist church is autonomus under God, and can choose whether it wants to be affiliated to a national grouping, and if so, which one. I notice that you, like me, are from England, so I can reply in the context of this country, where "SB" is an abbreviation for "Strict Baptist", and "Day One" (see PipeDude's reply) is a Christian publisher, formerly known as the Lord's Day Observance Society Probably the majority of local baptist churches here are affiliated to the Baptist Union of Great Britain. While by not means all Baptist Union churches believe that it is possible for a sinner to be converted and then lost, that view is more likely to be found in BU churches. It is not likely to be found in baptist churches affiliated to the Grace Baptist Assembly or the FIEC (Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches).

 

Baptists don't have creeds Pipedude, we have confessions.
These confessions (for the SBC) state what the churches have decided is our main line of beliefs. Not that ALL hold to them for some do not hold to all points but it was voted on as being the majority view and therefore our confession as a Convention.

Actually that aren't alot of people in the SBC who don't by into the unconditional security, yes there are some but the majority do believe in the Security of the Believer. It is one of the classic trade makes of the SBC.

 

If you lost your salvation, wouldn't that mean you had temporary eternal life?

:laugh:

 

Oh, then you'd agree with the poster who wrote

But when you say "Actually that aren't alot of people in the SBC who don't by into the unconditional security," I detect that we aren't using the expression "a lot" in the same way. When you're the biggest show in town, even a tiny minority can be "a lot." I'm well-acquainted with the majority position, but I'm testifying to what common people say when they don't think somebody's gonna thump 'em on the head for heresy. As you know, folks learn pretty readily what they can and cannot say and still fit in. All churches are like that.

I'm not suggesting that these are your most educated, brightest, or most faithful people. I'm just saying they are there and they aren't hard for a conditional securitist from another communion to find when he's moving out in the midst of them.

 

If anyone believes in Christ and know what He has done for them, if they walk way and never return they never believed in the first place.

I believe in eternal security of the believer.

1 John 2:19
They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.

Hebrews 3:12See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 14We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.

 

Eternal life? Does the Bible say that?

I've never heard that before.

Whoa! I'm gonna have to get back to you on that. If that's in the Bible, I'm gonna have to do some serious rethinking. Thanks for pointing that out. :saint:

 

As in not alot of people - small minority.

A small minority is still a small minority in comparison with the whole group from which you making the distiction.

In being an SBC most of my life I have yet to personally meet one SBC person who believes a person can loose their salvation. They may be out there and I know their are some but I have yet to meet even one personally. Not that I've met most SBC, but I have met a great many lay men and others who of other denominations who know SBC'er and attest, even get on their nerves that we don't hold to conditional security.